(Picture source: The New York Times)

The Invention of Hugo Cabret evokes a simpler time. In the 1930s, we were still neophytes at technology. What machines were capable of doing was indistinguishable from magic. More importantly, it was the a time where sound films were being introduced in cinemas and like many of us today, the masses were experiencing film as a medium that transports and immerses us in dreamscapes. The book’s simple hand-drawn black and white pencil drawings (300 pages worth) attempt to capture that period of innocence. Emotions are conveyed in a look, stories are revealed in specific moments captured in time.

This isn’t a graphic novel. The prose is longer and more descriptive, the pictures larger and grander in scale. It did feel like watching a silent movie at times, because the actors in those movies were often frozen in certain poses to emphasize the emotion in a scene. Likewise, the author Selznick often draws his characters in mid-flight or staring out of a page. The pictures often stood in place of a narrative and like a silent movie, the reader’s imagination is tasked to fill the void. 

Hugo is a plucky twelve-year-old who has had to support himself from a very young age after his only guardian disappears. He is resourceful and sleeps in a secret room somewhere in a Paris train station. His only connection to his father is a broken mechanical man, an automaton that his father spent his last days restoring. He meets a young girl and her guardian, the train station’s toy vendor, both with mysterious pasts, both tied to the automaton and a mystery made for Hugo’s unique talents to solve.

This is a simple tale. Those of us who are so used to the more complex young adult books will be disappointed. The ending was a little flat and not quite what it was built up to be. The story also makes references to a famous silent movie The Trip to the Moon. Being a science fiction film with special effects and with the inclusion of the automaton in the story, I fully expected a science fiction type ending so I was a little disappointed. 

Instead The Invention of Hugo Cabret is a homage to a man, Georges Méliès, an illusionist, an inventor who paved the way for special effects in movies. I can’t think of a better person than Martin Scorsese to bring this idea to life on the big screen. He’s wonderful at interpreting historic material and his movies are romantic.

Rating: A bit of a let down but I’m looking forward to see Scorsese’s adaptation.

Below is the silent film The Trip to the Moon.